Lost in Darkness: Found in Stars
by Dark Angel 5120
Summary: "When I woke up, I thought the world would be a better place. When I slept, I dreamed of peace, love, and the brotherhood of all of mankind. What I woke up to was war." The story of Aarini. A young girl, lost in a world of darkness, searching for her family and a place to call home.
1. Chapter 1

**Lost in Darkness: Found in Stars**

When I woke up, I thought the world would be a better place. When I slept, I dreamed of peace, love, and the brotherhood of all of mankind. What I woke up to was war.

When Aarini Noonien Singh was placed in to cryogenic slumber in the year 1997 she thought that the world would be a better place when she awoke. What she found was a dark shadow organization known as _Star Fleet, _bent on instigating a space war that would claim the lives of thousands and destroy the fragile peace that held the galaxies together_._ When her father is taken from her, Aarini is thrust into a world of danger and unknowns, where she can rely only on her strength and wits to keep her alive. Quickly lost in the darkness of the new century, Aarini fights against the organization hell bent on either destroying her or turning her into a weapon, as she searches for her father and her home in the strange and new world she finds herself in. But as unknown forces act against her and the clock begins counting down, the question is: how much time does she have left?

**Prologue**

_Star Date: 2258.110_

_Star Fleet Base Foxtrot Whisky Alpha 51: Undisclosed Location_

The scientist jumped as the automatic doors swooshed open unexpectedly. Dr. Urush was a nervous man; his shoulders eternally hunched as he hid behind his greasy curls, thick glasses, and wrinkled lab coat. He shuffled anxiously with the papers on his desk as he watched the ensemble enter the room. The guards were almost identical: burly severe looking fellows, dressed in all black with radios in ear and automatic weapons in hand. The man they were guarding, however, was quite different. He wasn't exceptionally tall, but he held himself in a way that commanded attention and respect—even with the intricate solid steel handcuffs keeping him prisoner. He was deathly pale, with a strange sharp bone set that, although harsh on the eyes at first glance, seemed to become more beautiful the longer one looked upon it. His hair was as dark as his standard issue prison garb, but it was his eyes that truly drew the young scientist attention. They were relatively small compared to the rest of his broad features, set deep into his face and gleaming sharply in the light. They were the color of summer storm clouds, twisting and every changing as one watched them. In a word: captivating.

"Dr. Urush!" A harsh bark broke the young scientist out of his musings. The Admiral, a frighteningly stern expression marring his features, entered after the group. His strides were long and purposeful as he moved, his keen eyes slicing across the room and settling on the table in the center. "Let's hurry this up shall we?"

"Ye…yes, of course, sir." The young man stumbled over his feet and began the sequence to awake the body on the table.

The young girl was eerily still in her frozen coffin. Her eyes were closed, her face completely blank of all emotion, dark hair framing her perfect features, and her chest still (not even breath moved her figure). The doctor doubled checked his numbers before quickly entering the sequence code into the chamber, the old fashion glass door sliding open as the process began.

For a long time nothing happened. This was to be expected, and yet the doctor felt sweat begin to accumulate on his palms. He could not even begin to imagine the horrors he would experience if this failed.

The changes in the body were so subtle they were practically nonexistent at first. Color rose slowly into the girl's skin. Like soot swirling to the surface of a pond when disturbed, the pigment was soft and subtle beneath the smooth features. She still did not move, but this stillness felt more temporary than the one that had come before. A dramatic pause in the midst of a movement rather than the end of the show itself. Then, finally, there was a sudden jolt as the young creature moved, her chest rising and falling again as the sound of her breathing filled the room. Her body picked up as if it had never stopped, the rhythmic cycle melting away some of the frozen tension in the laboratory.

The prisoner leaned over the girl, his face hovering above hers. He stared intently at her face, as if he could simply gaze through her lids and meet the eyes that rested there. His hair, too long and shaggy, fell, creating a temporary curtain around the two.

"Aarini?" He whispered the words too soft for the humans' ears to detect. "Aarini, wake up."

Her eyes snapped open, pupils dilating wildly as they adjusted to the blinding white lights. Green eyes locked onto those above her for a moment, holding the gaze before sweeping the surrounding area.

The girl quickly took stock of her body, perplexed by the foreign numbness she found in some of her extremities. She moved her lips first, opening them, as if to speak, before closing them again. Then, she moved her fingers, joints in her right hand groaning like unoiled hinges as she forced movement upon them. Feet were next. She pointed and relaxed them quickly, the sharp pain down her legs an easy tell that something was amiss. She stilled after that, focusing on her breathing and inner being for a moment. The air traveled coolly and smoothly through her lungs, filling her with life and energy. Her blood felt simultaneously burning against her frozen body and cool compared to its normal temperature. She felt as if she were getting a fever as her body temperature rose to its normal operating point.

She suddenly sat up, her body quickly losing its residual stiffness as the warmth of the air seeped into her skin. The doctor began to ramble about how that wasn't a good idea, but the girl didn't bother to tune in, her focus shifting outward as she examined her surroundings.

Her eyes skimmed over the room before resting on the prisoner, who stared at her with an indescribable look of tenderness that looked out of place on his features. "Hello, Aarini." He greeted her, holding out a hand to help her out of the container. She accepted it, his hand burning hot in hers. She climbed out, suppressing a shiver as her bare feet found purchase on the hard metal floor.

Once she was steady the young girl (who looked to be significantly shorter and younger than her companion) stepped forward, threading her arms around the man's torso and pressing her cheek against his chest, content to listen to his beating heart. Her voice was weak and hoarse, her mouth dry and tongue thick, but she forced the words out anyway. She needed to say them.

"Hey, dad."

**Chapter 1: The Beginning**

_Star Date: 2259.55_

_Star Fleet Base Foxtrot Whisky Alpha 51 Prison Block: Undisclosed Location_

The lights hummed and buzzed for a moment before flickering to life, their noxious florescent rays illuminating the room. The walls and floors were a dark dismal shade of grey, the type that seemed to absorb all sources of color in the room. There were no windows, only a thick stainless steel door against the far wall. A set of heavy duty chains hung from the ceiling. Each link was about three inches of solid metal, and the end was attached to a pair of handcuffs.

Long, delicate, pale fingers—calloused by hard work and long hours—were attached to boney slight wrist, covered by metal cuffs. Aarini's hand were suspended above her head, her shoulders bent back at an awkward angle as her toes skimmed the ground.

Her sleep had been light, and the brightness awoke her instantly. Her head hung forward as her loose black curls brushed against her cheeks. She kept perfectly still as she waited for something—anything—to happen.

The sound of clicking echoed in the room before the door swooshed open, and then closed again. Footsteps echoed in the small space as a pair of heavy boots made their way across the floor.

_Only one? Interesting._

Suddenly, a meaty hand grabbed a fistful of black hair, jerking Aarini's head back with a snap. She let out a fake cry of confusion and pain, blinking her eyes open and looking up. He was one of the guards that had been assigned to her all those months ago when she had awoken in this hell hole of a century.

His skin was leathery and rough, his face twisted by the lewd grin that showed a set of yellowed slightly crooked teeth. His hair was buzzed short, but somehow it maintained a slick greasy look. His muscles rippled under his shirt as her grabbed her chin, forcing her to look at him.

"Well, what do we have here?"

_My ticket to freedom._

"Ple…please, don…don't hurt me." She said, drawing tears into her eyes. Her body trembled slightly as she subtly stretched her legs out to gain a bit of purchase on the ground.

"The great Khan Noonien Singh's daughter reduced the begging. I wonder what he would say if he could see you now?"

"You'll shut your fucking mouth if you know what's good for you." She spat out, her glare murderous. Her lips were drawn back to reveal a set of perfectly shaped razor sharp teeth.

_Calm down and control yourself! _She could practically hear her father berating her.

"Oh, so she speaks." He taunted, leaning in so that his putrid breath ghosted across her face. Her eye twitched involuntarily as she fought back bile. "And you've got a mouth on you too. Let's see if we can put it to better use…"

The fight was over in less than three seconds, it really wasn't even a contest. He leaned in, his hot muggy lips pressed up against hers as his slimy tongue tried to slither its way in. She reacted quickly and efficiently, kneeing him in the stomach and hissing as he pulled out a chunk of her hair. He doubled over in pain and she kicked up, placing her legs around his neck in a stranglehold. Her struggled against the vice around his neck, his hands scrambling for purchase against the denim covered muscles that were currently crushing his windpipe. But, in truth, he didn't have a chance. She grunted as he suddenly turned into dead weight, her hand cuffs digging in painfully. She held on for another moment, to ensure he wouldn't be awakening any time soon, before letting him drop to the floor with an ugly thud.

She looked up at the ceiling and bit her lip as she coiled her legs in the air and sprang up, grabbing the chain. She easily climbed up the chain, crunching her body up so she was handing upside down with her feet planted firmly on the ceiling.

_One, two…_

The metal gave an ominous groan before it snapped. Aarini barely managed to right herself and land on her feet. She wasted no time, knelling beside the unconscious figure and quickly rifling through his pockets for his keys, gun, and anything else of value she could use to get out of here.

It took some maneuvering, but she managed to unlock the cuffs from around her wrist—ridding herself of one huge inconvenience. She slipped his phaser out of its holster, quickly examining the device before sliding it into her back pocket. She also took his jacket, cap, and shoes, clipped his ID card to her chest, and took a piece of the strange multi colored gum he kept. Now all she needed was the finishing touch.

Aarini had never really been one for gore. Horror movies, haunted houses, battle fields…never quite had been her forte. That being said, she wasn't squeamish around the stuff. How could she be? Blood, guts, fire, pain…it was all part of the business. She had accepted it, and grown quite adept at her trade. That didn't mean she had to like it.

All the same, in her own meticulous manner, she slipped her fingers into the eye socket of the unconscious guard, removing his eyeball from its confines in his skull. She made a face at the squishing sound and sticky feeling of blood coating her fingers, but otherwise didn't complain about it. She was just doing what needed to be done.

The first door (the one that had kept her from making her escape earlier) was easy to open. The guard had left it unlocked so that he could slip in and out, unnoticed. The hallway stretched out in front of her for about two hundred feet before she was met with her first real obstacle. This set of doors was not as thick as the one that had kept her imprisoned, but still impossible to open by sheer force. She walked up, swiping the stolen key card through the machine, and cursing as a number pad was revealed. Ten numbers, zero through nine. 9,000 possible combinations, assuming it's a traditional four digit system.

She growled and leaned down, examining the device for a moment. Then, she reached her hand forwards, nimble fingers removing the metal covering and revealing the bare technology beneath. She played with the indecipherable mess of wiring for a moment before finally connecting the two ends she wanted, smiling as the door hissed and slid open in response.

Aarini stepped into the next hallway, surprised to see a bright well lit corridor. There were about a dozen or so doors, identical to the one she has just exited from, numbers on them in black paint. A prison block then. She hadn't noticed any cameras, but really that meant nothing. She was going to have to work fast if she had any hope of getting out of here before they noticed she was gone.

_So left or right?_

She chose right, heading towards the beginning of the numbers. She could only hope that that would be the exit.

She arrived at the door, swiping the card again and fishing the freshly caught retina out of her pocket for the scanner. She stepped out into a circular room. Two doors in addition to the one she had just exited from adorned its walls and a large desk with three computer monitors took up the center of the room.

Aarini walked over, sliding into the chair and touching the key pad, bringing the technology to life. It had taken her a bit of adjusting, but after living in the 23rd century for a year she knew more than enough to navigate their technology and ways. It was different than things were back home, but people were the same no matter where (or when) you went. Life wasn't that hard to figure out.

The two side monitors were live video feed of the different cell blocks. Most were empty, the others simple set ups where the criminals were asleep safe in their beds. It must be night…how appropriate. The only image of any interest was the bloody body she had left in her own cell. It too a moment, but she quickly figured how to manipulate the image to repeated the same vision of her, asleep in her prison.

The center monitor was a blank desktop, the same programing that had been used on the devices Khan and Aarini had been given to work with on the Admiral's little "projects," which made it easy to navigate. She easily called up the Star Fleet search site, browsing the data for what she needed.

Khan Singh. She typed in. Search.

Your search – Khan Singh - did not match any documents. Please specify or redefine your search.

Aarini Singh. Search.

Your search – Aarini Singh - did not match any documents. Please specify or redefine your search.

She growled, trying to think of a key word that would lead her to her father.

Project Alpha Gamma Charlie. Search.

We're sorry. These documents are marked as classified. To view them please enter your ID number.

Damn it! Her fingers drummed restlessly as she stared at the blank screen. What would they leave unclassified?

John Harrison.

Her fingers hesitated over the keys for a moment before she typed in the name, clicking search.

45,000 results found.

She sighed, clicking the first link and glancing over the document. It was a report for one John Harrison to be transferred from here to research in the Star Fleet base in London. Section 31. So he was on earth. That was…problematic. An inconvenience at the very least.

Suddenly, one of the doors opened and a guard, his face buried in a PDA, walked in towards her. Aarini reacted instantly, jumping from her seat to take him out in one easy motion. Her hands found purchase on his chin and forehead as she jerked his head to the left, snapping his neck instantly.

She felt the hot turning sense of illness bubble up inside of her as the body fell to the ground, but she couldn't focus on that now. She needed to get out of here. She cleared the desktop and rose, moving quickly out the door and down the next hallway. She was wandering mostly blind, her knowledge of the base limited to the layout of the laboratories they had been forced to work in and the room she had stayed in prior to her time in the kinky prison suite. That being said, she did at least have some idea of the way these things were designed. She just needed to find her way to the transporter room or the laboratories.

She jumped at the sudden blaring alarm that filled the hallway, the lighting turned from white to red in the blink of an eye. Guess they found her little surprises. She started running, not even worried about discrepancy at this point. She slipped the phaser out of her pocket and let her finger rest on the trigger, ready to fire.

Her muscles were surprisingly stiff as she ran, but she paid that fact no mind as she watched for any indication of where she might be. She decided her best bet would be to reach one end of the ship and work her way around from there. She didn't have much time, but she was running out of options. A door beside her opened, suddenly two unfamiliar faces dressed in Star Fleet medical uniforms stepped out into the hall.

There was a slight hitch to her movement as she hesitated to harm two innocents. In the end she simply knocked them out, hoping that her superior strength didn't cause any serious brain damage as she hit the two fragile human skulls together. She didn't hear a crunch or see any blood, so she kept moving. Her gait became longer as she ran, her feet barely touching the floor as she flew through the ship.

Aarini saw them before they saw her, but by then it was too late to hide. She paused for half a second at the turn she was about to make, looking at the powerful phasers and angry faces that awaited her, before changing direction suddenly. She doubled back the way she had come, making a different turn down the identical hallways.

She could hear footsteps and voices following her, meaning she had less time than she had originally thought. She quickly ducked into one of the open doors in the hall she was in, slipping through the recreation room to the next set of doors on the other side. She took a deep breath before opening the doors, thanking every deity she could think of that no one was waiting for her on the other side.

She turned right and kept running; keeping her pattern of turns and rooms sporadic and spontaneous so that they couldn't predict where she was going. Finally, she began to recognize some of the rooms she was ducking into. She was getting closer to the laboratory.

Just as she saw the familiar doors, marked LAB DELTA 3, she heard footsteps not too far off. Phaser fire was sure to follow.

She ran into the laboratory, not bothering with the code, simply choosing instead to break down the door. Voices shouted behind her but she blocked them out, searching frantically for the equipment she needed. _Please let it still be here._

She walked over to the lab table where her father had spent countless hours slaving over the designs of war to help the scum who kept them hostage. Her hands, starting to shake a bit, opened the bottom drawer and removed the hidden bottom to the compartment.

She found the small rectangular box and sighed in relief. It was smaller than a shoe box, made of solid shinning metal and glowing with a blue electric energy. She quickly typed in her coordinates into the pad on the top of it and pressed the transmission button just as the guards burst in. She felt the strangest sensation of her molecules being pulled apart as warmth and light surrounded her body. Her vision went hazy for a second and she felt a piercing pain in her side. Then she was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Lost in Darkness: Found in Stars**

**Chapter 2: Indian Sun**

_Star Date: 2259.56_

_Alpha Quadrant, Sector 001, Sol system, Terra (Earth): India, just outside of Mumbai _

Consciousness came slowly. Sensory images flickered in and out as a soft picture of the surrounding world was painted in her mind. Aarini breathed deeply, feeling the painful twinge in her side that indicated something was wrong. She opened her eyes to blindness. The painful white light was soon replaced by a warped vision of the world, colors and shapes distorted slightly by the hazy glare that surrounded everything. The sky was a cloudless and familiar shade of azure, which put the young girl at ease. The sun was just a few degrees shy of noon, its heavy sultry rays painting on her skin with thick lethargic brush strokes of warmth.

She sat up and glanced around. She was lying in a puddle of what appeared to be water, mud, blood, and sewage beside an asphalt road. Her shirt was torn open on her left side, revealing about three inches of red oozing raised scar tissue. She clutched a dagger coated in dried blood in her hand. She remembered the familiar feeling of being stabbed just as she was transporting, one of the guards must have taken knife throwing lessons. Well, at least she had enough sense to remove the blade before she passed out, even if she was too stupid to move away from the (most likely toxic) sewage.

Aarini slowly leaned over and unlaced the heavy gravity boots before slipping them off her feet. They had been necessary on the space station, but here on earth they would just weight her down. She sucked in a breath through her teeth and cursed as she stood up, the gash in her side starting to bleed again in response to the movement. She tore off the bottom remains of her shirt and made it into a bandage of sorts before taking a better look at her surroundings.

The sewage she had been lying in seemed to have come from an underground pipe which came up about ten yards away, creating a toxic lake of sorts. Surrounding the water was dark mud, barren of any plants, and surrounding that was tall wild Indian grass that ran in every direction all the way to the horizon. The road she had been beside was narrow, probably wide enough for a single car, and it lacked any lane markers. The asphalt was light grey and thin, if she hadn't been standing right next it she might have missed it. There were no road signs or railings in sight, just the grey path winding through the tall grass.

If she had been right when she had plugged in the hasty coordinates, she should be on the West Indian coast. Of course she had no idea what the terrain was like in this new century, but she did have an idea of where the ocean was. And where there's ocean there's people that much she knew.

Aarini squinted as she tried in vain to block the bright sun from her eyes. The rays of light felt heavenly on her sun deprived skin, and the young woman longed to throw off her torn shirt and feel the sweet sunshine on the rest of her body. But she knew that her normally pale complexion wouldn't tolerate the ultraviolet rays, so she settled for enjoying the heat through her long sleeved shirt and pants.

Just as she was about to pick a direction to start walking (the road had to end somewhere right?) an unfamiliar sound flittered to her ear. It was like an engine, but not at the same time. It was definitely a machine; the familiar growl of metal told her as much. But, it was different than any engine she had heard before. This machine was almost alive and animalistic in its roar. It was quiet, but she could sense the power in the beast, even from this distance. Aarini glanced both ways down the road, searching for the source of the sound.

It approached from the north, at first just a small spark of light far off in the distance. Aarini walked back a few steps into the grass, as to not be seen by the driver, but she wasn't too worried about that. At the speeds the thing was traveling the driver probably couldn't see anything outside their windows.

The sound grew louder and louder as the machine approached. Aarini had never seen any car move so quickly in her life. It must have been going at least 200 miles per hour. It seemed to simply fly over the road, using the thin path as a mere suggestion of where it should go.

Aarini's head whipped around as she watched the machine shoot down the road in front of her. It was unlike anything she had ever seen before. Her sensitive eyes froze the image of the thing in her mind as she tried to analyze it. It was small, only about three feet wide and eight feet long. A sleek design, with a pointed front that widened and swooped up to create a passenger compartment big enough for a single person—it was made of shining black metal. Dark tinted glass created a window which surrounded the entire compartment, and Aarini couldn't see inside of it. But the most surprising thing about it was its lack of wheels. The vehicle did not travel along the road, but rather just above it. It was hovering.

It was out of her eye sight in a few moments, the tremendous speed of the device taking it over the hill and past the horizon line in seconds. Yet, she couldn't tear her eyes away from where it had been. She had seen advanced technology in her time in this century (she had spent a year on a god damn star base for god sakes) and yet there was something about this that was so different. It was one thing to see advancement in science, mathematics, medicine, and technology that you never even dreamed of, but to see something that they had thought of creating come to life like that. It was…mind blowing.

She decided to go in the direction the car had gone, hoping that it was going towards the city as opposed to away from it. She thought of taking the transporter with her, but it was useless now that it was uncharged and it seemed to have taken a hit during the fall, so she left it behind choosing instead to simply travel with herself.

She walked beside the road, her bare toes sinking into the soft dirt as she did. The sun shined on blissfully on her shoulders and the wind brushed softly through her hair as she made her way beside the road towards the horizon.

XxX

Aarini knew cities. She had spent the first six years of her like as an urban urchin, running about the streets of London as her mother tried to hold their fragile life together. Cities were crowded, and bright, and loud, and busy, and moving—all of the time. Cities, to her, were home. The streets were concrete jungles to climb and experience. The parks were foreign land of lush green to explore. The shadows of the alleys were safe. The roof tops open and daring. There were always things happening, and interesting people visiting, and life experiences to know. Yes, she loved cities, and they loved her. They had always been her home.

That said, she had never seen a city like this.

Cities were bright, but in all her years Aarini had never laid eyes upon a place as radiant as Mumbai in this new century. The sun seemed impossibly bright, even as it lowered itself towards the horizon. The light was so harsh it stung her eyes to even look at the patch of sky beside the celestial body. Hundreds upon thousands upon millions of rays of light reflected off the shining glass covered buildings, until the ocean was set ablaze by it. The very ground beneath her feet appeared to glow. There seemed to be no shadows in this city, only a perpetual state of brightness that was further illuminated by the manmade lights around every corner.

Cities were busy. But, this was unbelievable. There were so many things happening on the street. Vendors selling items unknown to her, shops with tall windows and wide open doors, strange animals prowling about, and people walking with their faces buried in little hand held devices. Aarini was in awe as they moved about, each on their own path without a single collision. The whole place moved with a seeming subconscious ease.

Cities were loud. But, here the sound was stifling. Aarini supported she had grown so used to the frozen silence of space. So much so that the constant buzz of voices and machines and _things _here was stifling to her. A constant hum in her ear that made it near impossible to even think!

Cities were crowded, yes. But, crowded didn't even begin to describe this place. Here people were pressed shoulder to shoulder on the streets. Houses stacked upon houses created buildings that stretched so far into the heavens that when you stood at the base of them no matter how far you craned your head back you could not see the top. These buildings were different as well. Rounded on their sides with different levels all molded and melted together in a form of architecture that she had never laid eyes upon before.

And finally, cities were neat and linear. This city, designed in a half circle around the harbor at its center, was a curved, twisting, winding labyrinth of thin roads and brick alleyways unknown to her. The sparse plant life seemed to have meshed with the metal from which the city was forged to create a sprawling map of concrete weeds that stretched out for dozens of miles into the mainland. The whole place seemed as if it may have simply grown out of the earth just the way it was, with no human will imposed on it at all. As Aarini worked her way further into the city (a lot like the bramble bushes she had wandered into as a child) she was further amazed by the people she found hidden in its depths.

People, at their core, were the same no matter where (or when) you went. This much Aarini knew. Yet, as she wandered through Mumbai, she couldn't help but wonder if perhaps she was wrong. Because through all her travels and studies, she had never come across people like this.

For one thing, they were all different. There was no universal consensus of skin tone, nor body type, or fashion, or even species! As she glanced down the street in front of her—a rather large thoroughfare in comparison with some of the other roads she had taken—Aarini must have seen a dozen different skin pigmentations, some of which she had never laid eyes on before. The normal shades of tan and cream and brown gave way to harsh blues and mellow reds painted over scales and thick leathery skin. The average body type was stretched and warped to every degree of scale imaginable—from long thin gangly limbs on one fellow, to short thick figures which seemed to almost rock back and forth as they walked down the street. And the fashion! Good holy lord the fashion! From long skirts to barely decent skin tight apparel, from bold bright patterns to muted plain garbs, with shaved heads and furry hands, blood glowing iris, sparkling color changing jewelry, and tattoos that moved across your skin! Aarini was enthralled by it all, absolutely and completely spell bound by the sights which passed before her eyes. She could have sat on the same street corner where she stood for the rest of the decade, just to watch the people go by.

She soon was forced to move on, slipping unnoticed through the crowds. If anyone thought her torn garbs and bloody beaten look was anything out of the ordinary they didn't comment on it. The people all just walked on, faces buried in their devices. She easily "barrowed" some more suitable travel clothes and food from a street vendor too busy bargaining with a strange looking purple fellow (whose head was incased in a glass bowl of water) to notice. By the time she had found a quiet alley to rid herself of the bloody rags and consume her meager meal the sun was almost set. If there was one last thing Aarini knew about cities it was not be caught out alone after dark.

The lands closer to the ports seemed more familiar to Aarini, if only marginally so. There were a few commercial strips on the water front with sleek shops, fancy bars and restaurants, and even a few places that could be called quaint in the right light, but the majority of the area was warehouses, dark streets, and _real _bars.

Aarini kept to the larger streets, walking a few paces behind a group of loud university age children that couldn't have been more than two or three years her senior. They shouted and laughed and drank as she crept silently in the shadows, near enough to them for others to assume she was in their protection, but far enough back for them to remain ignorant of her presence. Eventually the group stopped off at a bar that proudly proclaimed "The Best Chicken Wings in the Milky Way!" but Aarini continued her travels, quickly entering the harsher section of the town.

She passed several bars and pubs, each one not quite what she was looking for as the evening easily slipped into early night. She was already starting to hear the sounds of boats in the water and smell the fresh crisp smell of salt on the air when she finally found the place she was looking for. The sign above the door read: Felix s Sea Sid Bar Est blish d 22 7. The letters that were lit glowed florescent red, the rest remained broken and invisible against the darkness of the night sky. The building was an old half-rotted wooden sea side home, which had been converted to a convenient watering hole for the local yokels. It was run down, but not old. The damage spoke of poor keeping rather than the natural destruction of age. And judging by the types of alcohol signs hanging in the door this was a place for hard liquor. There were a few bikes in the parking lot, but the majority of the vehicles were what she assumed to be the futuristic equivalent of pickup trucks and vans. These were working men.

Hard liquor and working men. Perfect.

The inside of the bar was just as one would expect from glancing at the outside. The walls of the entire first story of the house had been removed to create one large (if it could be called that) space. The bar, an antique wooden contraption that was about twelve feet long and laminated on top, ran across the right wall, with mostly empty scattered tables taking up most of the floor space. The chairs and bar stools were metal, with crappy orange fake leather cushioning, and the carpet was a squishy green matted down substance that seemed to permeate the smell of a hangover. The lighting could be considered dim, but Aarini didn't really give it any consideration as she entered the room.

There were about twenty-five people that she could see in the place. One stood behind the bar, and one sat in the furthest corner table with her back pressed against the wall, several others sat around a central table with what looked to be a poker game in progress, and everyone else drank and talked quietly at their own tables. No one looked up as she entered, so Aarini took a moment to take a few observations before making her presence known. The man behind the bar was a pudgy fellow. He was bald with a red puffy face, small squinted eyes, and a large beer gut that seemed to droop as it hung over his belt. The men playing poker were all rather generic: long greasy hair, unwashed skin, and dirty clothes made of thick durable fabric. She caught sight of a knife blade in the one sitting closest to the door's boot, but she wasn't overly concerned, what really interested her was the girl sitting in the corner. She truly was a girl, no more than twelve or thirteen years of age. Her pail golden hair hung down in curtains around her thin frail face, which was buried in the tablet device she held. She appeared to be reading—something that wasn't school work if Aarini was to guess by her level of interest—her thin still childish limbs tucked under her as she folded herself into the corner of the establishment. It was she who first noticed Aarini standing there. She glanced up from her text, eyes widening slight as she caught sight of the strange figure looming—as much as a five foot six frame could loom—in the doorway.

It didn't take long for the rest of the men to quiet down and turn their attention to the stranger in their midst. (Aarini found that that majority of humans seemed to sense there was something off about her, even within moments of meeting. Especially those who were exceptionally young, old, or otherwise inebriated.)

"Canna' heelp yu?" (And yet they never trust their instincts and stay away.) The accent here was thick, but not completely indecipherable. Aarini could still hear the decent English buried in there.

"You can get me a drink." She said, keeping her stride calm and confident as she walked over and plopped down on one of the bar stools. "Whatever's cheap and strong."

He raised an eyebrow but didn't comment, simply taking out a glass (which was surprisingly clean) and pouring her three fingers of a dark mud colored liquid. She picked up the glass, swirling the drink casually as she pretended to get a first look at the place. Everyone else went back to their drinks, but the poker players didn't even bother for discretion as they openly gawked at her. She simply raised an eyebrow and took a sip of her drink, which was tasteless as it slid down her throat.

The players ignored her for a bit, going back to the game. They shot her varying degrees of lustful and suspicious looks as she sat, patiently waiting as she drank another three tasteless muddy waters and tapped her foot to the muted music. When the game was finally over a rough voice called out to her. She slowly slid her attention across the room to land on the speaker.

"What's a pirdy thing like you doin' in a place like this?" It was the dealer of the poker game who spoke. His "accent" was less pronounced than the bar keeps, but Aarini still found herself gritting her teeth beneath a forced smile as she listened to him speak.

"Lookin' for a good time. You boys know where I could find something like that?" They didn't speak, but their quick and silent looks to each other spoke more words than they probably knew combined. She smirked. "Tell ya what." She said, standing as she finished off her next drink. "Why don't you let me play a round with ya'll and we'll play for somein' a little more interesting than money."

Lewd grins broke out and Aarini could almost physically feel her flesh begin to crawl. Some men were so predictable.

"Sorry, hon. We already got five players." It was the one with the knife who spoke. Now that he was facing her Aarini could clearly see a faint outline of a scar across his left cheek and eye, leaving his vision disjointed and warped.

She was just about ready to break out her pout when another one of the men stood. His face red and sweaty as he glanced over her figure.

"I…I better go…go on home. See, Halle." He began mumbling about something else as he quickly finished off his beer and threw a wad of bills on the bar. "You can have my seat."

Aarini smirked and slid into his chair, which was still slightly warm from the body which had last occupied it. "So what are we playin'?"

"Agrarian stick up." The dealer said with a smirk.

"Remind me of the rules." Aarini said sweetly as she took a pretzel from the bowl in the center of the table and nibbled on it.

"Three apiece. Six down. Three for the twist. Two more makes a fleet. Bettin's normal." One of the other men gruffed at her.

"I don't have much money…" Aarini hedged, biting her lip.

"Then you can't play." Scar snapped. His glare was fierce but her smile was smooth and calm.

"Well, I have other…assets."

"Honey, we accept all kinds of credit here." The dealer said. His smile was too wide and showed too many of his crooked yellow teeth as his tall black eyes raked over her form.

"Well then," She smiled, her own grin predatory as she signaled for another drink. "Let's play."


End file.
